Now that the start of school is just a couple days away, we wanted to make sure to talk about a truly remarkable way of thinking known as “Growth Mindset”. As your child prepares mentally to return to school (however or wherever that may be: in-school, home-school, pods, etc.) they may have more fear and stress than normal about knowledge loss and expectations coming back. They know they missed out on some learning last spring, and that they have lost knowledge since then; so it makes sense they are a little nervous that the math this year may be a bit more challenging than they’re used to. This may cause your child to shut down and give up… if so, they’re not alone in feeling this way. A lot of kids view having to put effort into a problem as a failure and believe that means they are stupid and should stop trying. This is what is known as a “Fixed Mindset”, believing your intelligence can’t grow to meet the challenge.
We want to change this, with EVERY student, EVERY year!
Yet we believe this year it will be especially important.
In a wonderful Ted talk by Carol Dweck, mindset psychologist, who shared her life changing discovery on stage in 2014, you can hear how stark the difference can be between the outcomes of brains with “Fixed” vs “Growth” mindsets.
She explains how it’s a matter of changing your perception from: not knowing the answer, means you’re a failure – to – not knowing the answer, means you’ve been given an opportunity to learn and grow. It sounds like such a simple idea, but the potential positive impacts are enormous! However, it will take a change not only for our kids, but for parents and teachers as well.
She explains in the Ted talk that during the learning process, being intentional about WHEN we Praise our children is so vitally important. The standard teaching model is set to only praise correct answers, at the very end – not acknowledging any of the effort or process along the way. This further reinforces the idea that intelligence and a right answer is all that matters. This is wrong!! In her Ted talk “The power of believing that you can improve”, Carol Dweck states “Praising the process that kids engage in, their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement. This process praise creates kids who are hardy and resilient.”
Eager to help ensure your child has a “Growth Mindset” but feeling like you wish you had some more tools in your pocket? Jo Boaler’s, YouCubed – Growth Mindset page: https://www.youcubed.org/resource/growth-mindset/ has many resources to help start and guide you on your journey to give your child confidence to see all math challenges as purely new math opportunities for mental growth.
If you need any additional support for math this year, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! We are all in this together – and because we believe that teaching math to kids is our superpower, we will continue to do so. We are offering it both online and in-center so that we can help as many kids as possible in such trying times.
(303) 979-9077
(303) 979-9077
